Shontelle Xintong Cai
About
As a bio-inspired designer and interdisciplinary researcher, Shontelle Xintong Cai is currently based in Toronto and London. Her works explore the intersections of art, design, science and technology, especially biology-centred art and design.
She experiments with data design through visuals, sound and materials, experience systems and multimodal interaction. She particularly engages in audiovisual communication technologies, programming, ‘moist media’ and life science data in application of independent practices and collaborations with artists, engineers, and scientists.
Her art and design practices are influenced by her academic experiences in visual communication, digital media studies, and plant physiology. She critically and parametrically designs the innovative dialogues between complex scientific knowledge and cross-sensory experience. She applies the design methodologies of transmedia storytelling via informatics and computation, opening the discussions about the inherent values of non-human agencies, objecthood, posthuman ecology, emerging technologies, synthetic biology to the potential audience.
She has connected and shared her creative practices and design paradigm with respect to several workshops, symposiums, awards and exhibitions in Asia, North America, continental Europe and the UK.
Degree:
OCAD University-BDes Graphic Design, With Completion of an Academic Minor in Digital & Media Studies (2016-2020)
Royal College of Art- MA Information Experience Design, With the distinction of dissertation and final assessment in excellent (2020-2022)
Statement
Practices in IED:
During the degree research at IED, I delve into testing and prototyping the complexity and sensuality of information experience narratives, broadly the life science knowledge and cross-sensory interactive experience. This year, I investigate new insights into microbial morphology and spectromophology via machine learning, bio-informed practices, physical computing in wearables, 3D scanning, and publication.
To envision the relationships between human and non-human entities in reliable ways, I consult and collaborate with professionals working in scientific, technological and museological backgrounds. At this stage, I majorly connect with computer engineers, scientists and critics regarding museum studies, cellulose-based biomaterials, bio-inspired computation, computer visions, machine learning, human embryology, microbiome and bioinformatics research etc.
I consider Information Experience Design as Discussion: a design protocol centring around the non-human and ecological approach by sensory narratives and fictional objects.
Background:
"We see our own reflection in the microcosms. "
We co-evolve with the unseens (microbes) who are ubiquitous in nature. In the post-pandemic era, we as humans, have witnessed the ongoing trans-species entanglements and empowerment of micro-biopolitics. It is crucial to be respectful to the unknowns and surroundings and to recognize how micro-biopolitics highly influence human and non-human activities.
In London, our surrounding microbial territory shows the uniqueness of microbiological properties. After collecting the samples and observing them under the microscope, I raise my interest in speculating the artificial nature, bridging the virtual and physical ecosystem.
How can I digitize and re-materialize the data to present the unfamiliar interspecies communication? I believe the governance of microorganisms and relevant AI tools can lead me to expand the vision of “designing nature” with scientists and data analysts. From the general study in image processing of microbial morphology, I find my interest in creating natural and artificial specimens circling quorum sensing (bacterial cell-cell communication).
Finally, I desire to present the creativity and value of my trained data, work with professionals in different fields, and synthesize the entangled artificial/natural messages based on London microbial territory and evidence of bacterial talks.
I speculate a post-specimen museum in this project "Augmenting Hybrid Specimen", which enables scientists, artists and designers to imagine and predict the possible future of hybrid organisms,
Keywords:
Knowledge Complexity, Sensory Engagement, Inclusivity, Post-specimen, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning in Visualization, Sonification and Biology, Morphology, Biotextile, Bio-inspired and Bio-informed
Augmenting Hybrid Specimen: Research
Bio-inspired Design in Relation to :
- Fictionality and Sensuality
- Abstraction and Narration
- Digitalization and Re-materialization
In this project, I examine how the interspecies hybrids, especially bacteria are able to challenge the human-centred museum environment through machine learning and 3d making.
Key references:
Medium: Digital Image
Natural Specimens: Experiments, Observation and Re-materializion
During the early stage of project analysis, the critical research-based practices are supported and supervised by professionals in RCA from research ethics assessment to the step-by-step process.
Acknowledgement:
Ethics Check, Communication and Experiments: Nikolet Kostur, Charlotte Jarvis, Dr Carolina Ramirez-Figueroa and Mike Alexander
Tutorial Support: Dr Matt Lewis, Angus Main
Medium: Installation, Digital Images
Museum Experience and Narratives
Keywords
-Imaginary
-Fluidity/Flexibility
-Microbial Movement/Talk
Purpose
To experience, feel and sense the process, result and imaginative evidence of microbial communication
Target Public Audience:
Who is interested in learning knowledge from experience
Who is interested in exploring human-microbe(/bacteria) and interspecies relationships
Professionals:
Who wants to know how machine learning is
capable of making scientific graphics
Who works in the bio-relevant fields, desiring to know more
about data visualization and public engagement
Special Thanks:
Xintong Tian (tianxintong.jlu@gmail.com)
and
Shuxuan Yang (yangsx99@126.com, University of Leicester, School of Museum Studies)
for professional consultations and feedback in Museum Studies.
Augmenting Hybrid Specimens: A Sonic Cabinet of Curiosities
In “Augmenting Morphology, a Sonic Cabinet of Curiosities”, a soundscape is able to bridge fiction and reality. The artist investigates new insights into spectromophology and biological morphology in micro. The aesthetics of electroacoustic narratives and bio-visualization emerge from a speculative acoustic territory from a Wunderkammer (Cabinet of Curiosities) of a fictional post-specimen museum. The collections of unknown and fantasy objects are AI-generated specimens based on real microscopic images observed by the artist. The artist explores the potential role of machine learning and computer-assisted composition in the process of curating, analyzing and generating the sonic, visual and textual variations associated with fictional specimens.
The audiences get to perceive and build the knowledge of fictional specimens when processing and fusing multiple modalities simultaneously, particularly in this project, is the engagement of vision and audio. By exploring the multimodal storytelling and combinatory creativity of a series of specimens and sound effects, sensory information begins to flow, migrate and further create novel enigmatic mood and memory. Noise is constantly generated under the collision of synthesizer, code and image data. The establishment of spectral spatiality is contributed by granular synthesis and microsound in composition. Within an immersive audiovisual environment, the audiences observe the Cabinet of Curiosities including AI-generated microbes and sound objects.
This project intends to envelop data sonification, sound synthesis and digital image analysis of machine learning via GAN, open-source computer vision by processing, Wekinator, and MAX/MSP etc. This work had been presented in IRCAM Forum Paris Workshops in March 2022.
Medium: Digital, Sound
Size: 5‘40
The Augmented Biofilm: Harmonies
"They are ubiquitous and delightful in digital and nature. They burble and harmonize through the unseen realms."
In collaboration with the musician in Lewes Music Group, this work depicts the delicate movement of biofilm with chamber music and data sonification. The artificial hybrids of biofilm are generated and animated by machine learning and visual programming. The original programme of this work is "Pastorale and Fioritura " composed by Lance Mok.
Composer: Lance Mok
Performer: Lance Mok (Piano) & Wong Ka Wing Karen (Flute)
Video & Sound Editor: Shontelle Xintong Cai
Medium: Video Installation, Moving Image, Chamber Music
Size: 10'02
In Collaboration with:
- Lance Mok
Pianist, Composer - Wong Ka Wing Karen
Flautist
Artificial Hybrid Specimens
In the post-pandemic era, humans have somehow expanded our understanding of microbial agencies, dependencies and relations. The embodied and surrounding microbial territories also show their unique morphologies and properties.
To challenge the limits of the current museological narrative and human-centred view, “Augmenting Hybrid Specimen” investigates the new insights into multispecies ethnography and communication in micro and machine learning. The aesthetics of bio-visualization and multi-modal archive critically emerges on a glimpse of the fictional post-specimen museum.
The artist solidifies microbial-related messages and interspecies communication into fiction and facts, storing them in a speculative cabinet of curiosity and film screening. This collection exhibits hybrid artefacts and code-generated data of quorum sensing (bacterial cell-cell communication), which diversely portrays the temporal and spatial distribution of the microbial community in the artist's neighbourhood.
With a distribution system of specimens and sensorial information built around the microbiome, it aims to shift the subjectivity and objectivity between human and unseen microbial communities in museums. The reinterpreted specimen and their narratives went through multiple iterations in biological sampling, bio-materialising, publishing, visual programming, and sonifying image-based data.
The fictional experience provokes a new discussion of symbiotic mutualisms and a better understanding and appreciation of the microbial self.
Medium: Installation
Size: Variable
Quorum Sensing in Biofilm Formation
The morphology of biofilms narrates the diversity of quorum sensing (bacterial cell-cell communication). These dried SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) samples are naturally dyed and displayed as the prototypes of nanofibrillar biomaterial (bacterial cellulose). They represent the bio-based product during bacterial communication, showing the possible collaborative future between humans and bacteria in sustainability, synthetic biology and ecology. As a critical practice, these collections are supported by Natural Matters-Future Material Lab, RCA.
Special Thanks to
Lingxi Hua by natural dye instructions;
Ziyi Wang and Alvin by 3D rendering support
Medium: Bio-material, Digital Images
Size: Variable
Previous Research - Augmenting Morphology: The Artificialis Historia
In the "Augmenting Morphology: The Artificialis Historia", I investigate the new insights into biological morphology and multispecies ethnography in micro and machine learning. The aesthetics of micro-biopolitical narratives and bio-visualization critically emerge on a glimpse of the fictional post-specimen museum.
The collections of AI-generated specimens are based on microscopic images observed and captured in the ecosystem of London. I intend to engage the audiences to perceive and build relevant knowledge from fictional specimens, documents and dialogues around them, reflecting the power of micro-biopolitics in the post-pandemic era and historical entanglements with non-humans.
Medium: Installation